An online journal since 1998

We broke up. It seems inevitable now. Those naive discussions back in June about how maybe a casual something would be nice were incredibly naive. So was my inevitable thinking about the future and about whose sperm we could borrow if we wanted to have babies together. She doesn’t see herself with me in twenty years, and that’s that.

Of course, it’s not just like that, the clean break, the smooth cut, the shaking of hands and saying “jolly good show old chap, well cheerio”. It was three hours of wailing and bawling and crying and half a pack of serviettes used to wipe noses, snot everywhere, choking on tears, grasping at each other, trying to make bargains with the universe that there might not even be a twenty years from now anyway, and couldn’t we just be together now and let the future us deal with all this fucking pain?

It is a strange thing, breaking up as a grown up. You will know that my only other experiences were when Thomas left me for Jo, and all I could feel was rage, and emptiness, and I couldn’t stop throwing up and I couldn’t eat, and wanted to kill myself except that right when I wondered if I could hang myself from a tree with the threadbare cardigan I was wearing, a random cat showed up and cuddled up to me. That was all rage. And I suppose there was when the married man and I decided we would stop, once and for all, and so I surrounded myself with coverage of Obama’s inauguration, and I tried to focus on other things, but mostly I just hated myself for ever starting it in the first place. This is different. I would not trade the past six months for anything, not even the horror of yesterday and the long, long, long goodbye.

We didn’t fight. Our first disagreement was our breakup. I am not left in any doubt that she loved me, that I was desirable, that I was a significant part of her life, that I will be missed. It is really fucking hard, but I get it. I don’t hate her, or resent her or anything. I love her, and I miss her, and I wish her well. I know she’ll find happiness (hopefully not too soon though), and that I’ll find happiness (ditto), and one day we’ll be friends again and that will be awesome. But for now though, I will be really glad that work is crazy busy, and I will rely on my darling friends to keep my time occupied, and I will gulp sleeping pills before bedtime as if I’m premenstrual every day, and I’ll cuddle my cats, and I might cry. A lot. And be angry about stupid things like how I won’t get to see the underwear I bought her for Xmas, and how she won’t peel potatoes with the peeler she bought me and how we broke up six days before our six-month anniversary. And then I’ll cry some more. But I’ll be okay.